We are a small group here and we know each other here as a family of sorts. I'm sure that some members here keep in contact via Skype, telephone, email or just even meeting in person. The live meeting is where the whole dynamic of the relationship changes. It's like getting together with a close friend that you have never meet.

Back in 2006 we put together a weight weenie gathering at the Tour de Georgia. Lightspeed was a gracious host where Herbert and myself put a lot of time into it and it was for me a very memorable trip. If you're board you can read about it here.

As I previously mentioned I keep in touch with several members here. Mdeth1313 is one of those individuals. Yesterday morning sitting in Chicago at my mother in laws house I responded to an email that Mdeth1313 had sent me and mentioned I was getting ready to head out to the airport shortly with my wife to attend a friends wedding in New York. I get an immediate response telling me that he too was going to be in New York that evening with his wife. After a few quick emails back and forth and an exchange of cell phone numbers a mini gathering was on.

So we met last night and while most of the talk was about bikes and cycling we did jump into other conversation too. It was like I had met an old lost friend. The only thing that could have made the experience better would have been if the meeting had taken place somewhere where we could ride and had bikes. I'm really looking forward to see this friendship grow and it was really an eye opener to me to contact the members here to possibly meet as I travel since I see a common bond with passion of bicycles making it a wonderful experience. I also need to work out the bike and riding together part too.

No personal encounters (yet), but many, many nice PMs and emails that restore my faith in forum info exchange. Who knows, maybe the northern winter will be so severe that we will have to rename our guest room as, "Rambling Crumpton Arms"

A forum member, 944Turbo, was selling something I was interested in. After many back and forth pm's and emails, found out he lived close to where I was driving through on my way home. Decided it might be easier to meet in person rather than ship the item. Long story short, met in person and spent a good 15-20 min just talking shop about cycling and bikes. Was a great time. We are such a large and diverse group, you are almost bound to bomb into one another if you make an effort.

Met up and rode with pastronef when I cycled in France last year. We ended up organising to catch up when I posted questions here about riding in France. I like to keep to myself and normally ride solo, but he is a top bloke and I had a great day riding a circuit over the Col du Petit St Bernard with him.

Also kept in contact with Big Fellow (R.I.P mate) when we realised we had a common interest in rock climbing as well as cycling. Was fortunate to be able to ride with him the once when he made one of his visits back to Australia.

I've met a dozen or so people from a motorcycle forum I've religiously frequented for a few years and I've made a couple relationships that will definitely see our kids be friends (two of them have had kids this year and I was one of the first to know). The strangest thing is explaining to people how you met - but I think it's just a sign of the times and "I know him from the interwebz" isn't so taboo anymore. I've come to be closer with a couple fellas from a forum than I've been with some family for years. I think it's a pretty awesome thing. Glad to see it here as we'll.

I met a member at mountain bike nationals a few years back. We ended up being in the same race and actually went back and forth on the trail a few times. Wasn't until after the race I realized that we had talked to each other on here a couple months earlier. Definitely a good ice breaker, especially for someone who's pretty bad at meeting people.

Met the biketart himself in Richmond Park, London. His purple bike looks even better in person that it did on the 17 pages of comments here. Unfortunately I moved to Switzerland and he to Sydney, otherwise I'm sure we might have done some good rides through London.

I'm game for a Euro-weenie gathering. I know there are several weenies in/near the Netherlands. I'm about 40km north of Amsterdam and the riding is beautiful here. A bit soggy at the moment, but that hasn't stopped anyone...

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